“Was it to tell me that, Madame,” coldly replied Gondy, “that Your Majesty admitted me to the honor of entering your presence?”
“No, my dear coadjutor,” said Mazarin; “it was to ask your advice in the unhappy dilemma in which we find ourselves.”
“Is it true,” asked Gondy, feigning astonishment, “that Her Majesty summoned me to ask for my opinion?”
“Yes,” said the queen, “it is requested.”
The coadjutor bowed.
“Your Majesty wishes, then—”
“You to say what you would do in her place,” Mazarin hastened to reply.
The coadjutor looked at the queen, who replied by a sign in the affirmative.
“Were I in Her Majesty’s place,” said Gondy, coldly, “I should not hesitate; I should release Broussel.”
“And if I do not give him up, what think you will be the result?” exclaimed the queen.
“I believe that not a stone in Paris will remain unturned,” put in the maréchal.
“It was not your opinion that I asked,” said the queen, sharply, without even turning around.
“If it is I whom Your Majesty interrogates,” replied the coadjutor in the same calm manner, “I reply that I hold Monsieur le Maréchal’s opinion in every respect.”
The color mounted to the queen’s face; her fine blue eyes seemed to start out of her head, and her carmine lips, compared by all the poets of the day to a pomegranate in flower, were trembling with anger. Mazarin himself, who was well accustomed to the domestic outbreaks of this disturbed household, was alarmed.
“Give up Broussel!” she cried; “fine counsel, indeed. Upon my word! one can easily see it comes from a priest.”
Gondy remained firm, and the abuse of the day seemed to glide over his head as the sarcasms of the evening before had done; but hatred and revenge were accumulating in his heart silently and drop by drop. He looked coldly at the queen, who nudged Mazarin to make him say something in his turn.
Mazarin, according to his custom, was thinking much and saying little.
“Ho! ho!” said he, “good advice, advice of a friend. I, too, would give up that good Monsieur Broussel, dead or alive, and all would be at an end.”
“If you yield him dead, all will indeed be at an end, my lord, but quite otherwise than you mean.”
“Did I say ‘dead or alive?’ ” replied Mazarin. “It was only a way of speaking. You know I am not familiar with the French language, which you, Monsieur le Coadjuteur, both speak and write so well.”
(“This is a council of state,” d’Artagnan remarked to Porthos; “but we held better ones at La Rochelle, with Athos and Aramis.”
“At the Saint Gervais bastion,” said Porthos.
“There and elsewhere.”)
The coadjutor let the storm pass over his head and resumed, still with the same tranquillity:
“Madame, if the opinion I have submitted to you does not please you it is doubtless because you have better counsels to follow. I know too well the wisdom of the queen and that of her advisers to suppose that they will leave the capital long in trouble that may lead to a revolution.”
“Thus, then, it is your opinion,” said Anne of Austria, with a sneer and biting her lips with rage, “that yesterday’s riot, which today is already a rebellion, tomorrow may become a revolution?”
“Yes, Madame,” replied the coadjutor, gravely.
“But if I am to believe you, sir, the people seem to have thrown off all restraint.”
“It is a bad year for kings,” said Gondy, shaking his head; “look at England, Madame.”
“Yes; but fortunately we have no Oliver Cromwell in France,” replied the queen.
“Who knows?” said Gondy; “such men are like thunderbolts—one recognizes them only when they have struck.”
Everyone shuddered and there was a moment of silence, during which the queen pressed her hand to her side, evidently to still the beatings of her heart.
(“Porthos,” murmured d’Artagnan, “look well at that priest.”
“Yes,” said Porthos, “I see him. What then?”
“Well, he is a man.”
Porthos looked at d’Artagnan in astonishment. Evidently he did not understand his meaning.)
“Your Majesty,” continued the coadjutor, pitilessly, “is about to take such measures as seem good to you, but I foresee that they will be violent and such as will still further exasperate the rioters.”
“In that case, you, Monsieur le Coadjuteur, who have such power over them and are at the same time friendly to us,” said the queen, ironically, “will quiet them by bestowing your blessing upon them.”
“Perhaps it will be too late,” said Gondy, still unmoved; “perhaps I shall have lost all influence; while by giving up Broussel Your Majesty will strike at the root of the sedition and will gain the right to punish severely any revival of the revolt.”
“Have I not, then, that right?” cried the queen.
“If you have it, use it,” replied Gondy.
(“Peste!” said d’Artagnan to Porthos. “There is a man after my own heart. Oh! if he were minister and I were his d’Artagnan, instead of belonging to that beast of a Mazarin—mordieu! what fine things we would do together!”
“Yes,” said Porthos.)
The queen made a sign for everyone, except Mazarin, to quit the room; and Gondy bowed, as if to leave with the rest.
“Stay, sir,” said Anne to him.
Good, thought Gondy, she is going to yield.
(“She is going to have him killed,” said d’Artagnan to Porthos, “but at all events it shall not be by me. I swear to Heaven, on the contrary, that if they fall upon him I will fall upon them.”
“And I, too,” said Porthos.)
“Good,” muttered Mazarin, sitting down, “we shall soon see something startling.”
The queen’s eyes followed the retreating figures and when the last had closed the door she turned away. It was evident that she was making unnatural efforts to subdue her anger; she fanned herself, smelled at her vinaigrette, and walked up and down. Gondy, who began to feel uneasy, examined the tapestry with his eyes, touched the coat of mail which he wore under his long gown, and felt from time to time
